Venue Type:

The entire collection of the Museum of London Docklands is a Designated Collection of national importance.

The collection consists of objects reflecting the social history of the Thames and London's port, including archaeological finds, works of art, scale models, contemporary tools and many miscellaneous items that would have been traded through the port.

Collections also include the Sainsbury Archive, a collection of documents, artefacts and photographs relating to the history of the food retailing company founded by John James and Mary Ann Sainsbury in 1869.

Collection details

Key artists and exhibits

William Ware

Designated Collection

Exhibition details are listed below, you may need to scroll down to see them all.

Exhibition (permanent)

London, Sugar & Slavery

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

In the setting of this historic sugar warehouse, the London, Sugar & Slavery gallery reveals how London’s involvement in slavery has shaped the capital since the 17th century, and challenges what you think you know about the transatlantic slave trade and long-held beliefs that abolition was initiated by politicians.

Key artefacts in the gallery are the surviving papers of Thomas and John Mills, who owned plantations in St Kitts and Nevis, providing us with glimpses into the lives of both the enslaved and the slaver.

In the gallery you can experience an immersive sound and light show which is projected on the gallery walls every 20 minutes. The experience encourages you to consider enslavement and freedom both in terms of the transatlantic slave trade and what they mean for us all today.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

First Port of Empire: 1840 - 1939

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

With the advent of steam power, the volume of trade flowing through London massively increased. More trade meant more docks. Ships were becoming larger as wooden ships gave way to iron. Between 1855 and 1886 a series of new dock complexes were built on both banks of the river.

The gallery explores the life of the docker, with exhibits such as the massive Stevedores' banner commemorating the 1889 Dock Strike. Other subjects include the arrival of the first dock police forcethe building of the Great Eastern, one of the world’s largest shipsand the Princess Alice disaster - the worst maritime disaster in British history. Paintings and photographs and film bring the richness of the stories to life.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

City and River 1820 - 1840

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The first half of the nineteenth century brought great change to London's river and port. A huge docks complex was built on the Isle of Dogs, new bridges spanned the Thames and a tunnel was dug beneath it. The scale of London's commercial activity grew massively and all those changes are examined in this gallery.

The gallery also examines the whaling trade. At one time London had the largest fleet of whalers in the world and the display includes a selection of nineteenth-century harpoons, a pot for boiling whale blubber to extract the oil and some timber from a nineteenth century whaler.

This was also an age of engineering, with the demolition of the old medieval London bridge and its replacement with a splendid new one designed by John Rennie. Marc Isambard Brunel went further by constructing the first Thames tunnel between Wapping and Rotherhithe. The gallery includes models and original drawings of what was the world's first tunnel under a navigable waterway.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Number 1 Warehouse

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The Museum of London Docklands is housed in one of only two remaining warehouses erected on the north quay by the West India Dock Company. Originally built in the 1800s by wealthy merchants and slave plantation owners, these magnificent buildings once held great cargoes of sugar, rum and coffee.

Each storey of the building was originally a different height – dictated by the nature of the cargo to be stored. The ground floors were designed to store two tiers of hogsheads of 'clayed' sugar. The upper floors stored a single tier of the heavier hogsheads of muscovado sugar, while the top floors held the lighter cargoes such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and pimento.

The other warehouses were destroyed during the Second World War in September 1940. After the closure of the West India Docks in 1980 the building became derelict. In 2000 work began on restoring and converting the Grade I-listed building for use as a museum.

This gallery gives a flavour of that cornucopia of goods. It features a tobacco weighing station, a recreation of a bottling vault and exhibits about the tobacco, timber, grain and sugar trades.

There is also a 'cabinet of curiosities' packed with commodities. An interactive touch-screen explores the more exotic of these - ivory, turtle shells and ancient curios. An opium pipe, ingeniously hidden in a section of a sailor's bunk, hints at a darker side of overseas trade.

Suitable for

Website

New Port New City 1945 - Present

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The museum's final gallery focuses on the changes that have transformed the look and feel of this part of East London over the last 60 years.

Beginning in the post war period, the gallery recounts the ups and downs of London's inland docks, culminating in their closure in the 1960s and 1970s. The traumatic events brought physical dereliction, job losses and severe social strains on local communities.

The turbulence continued as Docklands became the site of the largest regeneration project in Europe. The gallery looks at the process of regeneration through the eyes of community activists and developers. The Canary Wharf development and Docklands Light Railway both feature with uniforms, posters, models and ephemera enriching the story of the massive redevelopment.

The development of Docklands over the past 200 years has mirrored the shifting patterns of British trade and economy. Where ocean-going ships delivered people and products from all over the world to London, multinational corporations now work moving money and goods electronically. New port, new city.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Mudlarks Children's Gallery

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The Mudlarks gallery at the Museum of London Docklands is an interactive play area for children and their parents. Divided into different zones, Mudlarks provides a lively addition to the more traditional galleries, allowing children and their parents to let off steam while continuing to learn about London's port, river and people.

Younger children can explore the soft play area with its DLR train and giant props, while older children can get to grips with hands-on interactives that bring the history of London's Docks to life. Have fun digging for treasure and damming a river in the Foreshore Finds area, try cargo lading in Tip the Clipper, explore the Victorian Docks in Docklands Playtime and see if you can lift the sacks in Lift and Shift.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Docklands at War 1939 - 1945

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The docks were an obvious target for Hitler's air force and late in the afternoon of Saturday 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe launched a massive daylight raid on London. Ninety consecutive night time raids followed. A collection of stunning paintings by William Ware (1915 - 1997) illustrate the intensity of the Blitz on London's docks.

Other exhibits explore the Port's role in the Dunkirk rescue, and secret projects such as construction of the Maunsell FortsPipe Line Under The Ocean and the huge breakwaters for the Mulberry Harbours. The gallery contains a life-size replica of a Port of London Authority (PLA) shelter constructed during the war. The PLA built two hundred of these shelters and they saved the lives of many people.

One of the Museum's most treasured possessions is a flag that flew from the bow of one of the first landing crafts to reach France during the D-Day landings on 6th June 1944. It was found among the effects of George Sluman, a former waterman who was coxswain of the craft.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Sailortown: 1840 - 1850

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The Sailortown gallery is a full size reconstruction of the dark, winding streets of Victorian Wapping. The gallery attempts to recreate the contemporary description of the area as "both foul and picturesque". The area was a maze of streets, lanes and alleys. Its inhabitants catered to the needs of sailors of all nationalities alighting in London.

In 1852, the reverend Thomas Beames wrote of the area around the docks:

"Go there by day and every fourth man you meet is a sailor… Public houses abound in these localities… fitted up with everything which can draw sailors together… in a third class of house were professional thieves … they were evidently preying upon the drunken sailors whose ill luck had led them to places where they were little acquainted."

Those brave enough to enter Sailortown will find an alehouse, sailors' lodging house, chandlery, wild animal emporium, and much more.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Trade Expansion and Legal Quay: 1600 - 1800

1 November 2014 — 1 November 2018 *on now

The formation of trading companies such as the East India Company, Muscovy Company and the Africa Company allowed the British Empire to expand commercially across the world. All had their roots in London.

This gallery also explores the 'Legal Quays' established by Elizabeth I in 1558, for the collection of customs dues on cargoes.

Other displays explore the building of London's first wet docks at Rotherhithe for the whaling tradethe landing of East India cargoes at Blackwallshipbuilding and related industries.

There are displays about visitors from overseas such as Pocahontas and Prince Lee Boo. A touch-screen journey to China aboard the East Indiaman Falmouth introduces the concept of world trade, navigation and the perils of merchant voyages. A dramatised video shows business being conducted inside a typical 18th-century London coffee house.

Thames Highway: AD43 - 1600

This gallery explores the early ports of London, from the arrival of the Romans in AD43 to the historic ports of Norman and medieval London excavated at Billingsgate and Lower Thames Street.

Artefacts and documents concerning these early riverside trading settlements are displayed, and visitors are invited to interact with archaeologists at a series of multimedia points – introduced by Time Team's Tony Robinson – located in the gallery. The gallery has been designed to support National Curriculum studies in Science, Geography and History.

A spectacular feature of the gallery is a 1:50 scale model of Old London Bridge, the first stone structure over the Thames. One side of the model illustrates the state of the bridge and its buildings at around 1450, the other – hidden until visitors pass through into the next gallery – shows the bridge in all its Tudor glory.

Suitable for

Family friendly

Website

Tunnel: the archaeology of Crossrail

10 February — 3 September 2017

Tunnel: the archaeology of Crossrail will display the mostcomplete range of archaeological objects unearthed byCrossrail, alongside the story of this great feat of engineering.The wide variety of items on display will explore 8,000 years ofhuman history, revealing the stories of Londoners ranging fromMesolithic tool makers and inhabitants of Roman Londinium tothose affected by the Great Plague of 1665.MAJOR EXHIBITION

Suitable for

Any age

Where

Museum of London docklandsNo1 Warehouse, West India QuayLondonLondonE14 4ALEngland

Events details are listed below. You may need to scroll down or click on headers to see them all. For events that don't have a specific date see the 'Resources' tab above.

Seasonal event

Victorian Santa’s grotto

2 — 23 December 2016 *on now

It’s time to get into the Christmas spirit! Experience our Sailortown gallery, transformed with festive decorations and the sound of Victorian carols being sung in the distance. Find Santa in his grotto and receive a festive gift. From £7 per child (includes gift). Photographs available at an additional cost.

Suitable for

5-6

0-4

7-10

Where

Museum of London DocklandsNo1 Warehouse, West India QuayLondonE14 4ALEngland

Admission

Times and prices vary,prebooking advised

Website

Rebuilding London. - Multiple events. February Half Term. FREE

11 — 19 February 2017

Take part in a week of daily free familyevents exploring how London wasrebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666.Create your own map of London ormake a phoenix masterpiece out ofburnt materials. Join us for interactivestorytelling or help poet Sara Hirschcreate a fire-themed poem.Daily event info available online.SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES

Admission

Website

Tickets please! - Free

15 February 2017 10:30am-1:45pm

Wed 15 Feb, 10.30-11.15am,11.30am – 12.15pm & 1-1.45pmDiscover modes of transportpast and present whilelearning songs about travelin the city during this musicalsession for under 5s and theirparents and carers.SUGGESTED AGES: UNDER 5S FREE

Website

Families find out

11 — 12 March 2017 11am-4pm

Sat 11 Mar & Sun 12 March, 11am – 4pmHow do we know how hot the fire was? Why did it spread soquickly? Investigate the Great Fire of London with studentsfrom Imperial College London and get readyto be inspired byscience and technology in this extravaganza of activities.SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES FREE, drop-in

Suitable for

0-4

5-6

7-10

11-13

16-17

14-15

18+

Any age

Where

Museum of London150 London WallLondonLondonEC2Y 5HN

Admission

FREE

Website

Great Fire archaeology

1 — 17 April 2017

Sat 1 – Mon 17 Apr, 12-4pmWhat can we learn about the Great Fire from theartefacts that survived? Find out at our free familyevents. Write a message to the archaeologists of thefuture, become an archaeologist yourself and piecetogether a puzzle or help us tell captivating tales.Daily event info available online.SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES FREE, drop-in

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E-mail

Box office

Telephone

Box office

020 7001 9844

Recorded Information line

020 7001 9844

All information is drawn from or provided by the venues themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.